Wedge indicators - your thoughts, gentlemen :)
Discussion
So, there you are in your Wedge of an evening, hurtling around with your Renault 12 indicators...
when a stone is thrown and smashes the lens to bits (and one of the bulbs with it
). Oh, apologies for the flies on the bumper, by the way... 
Anyway, off you trundle to Renault, who promise visual Nirvana in, oh, 5 or 6 weeks, 40 quid a side please guv'nor (the backplate is also rotten, so not much point in just renewing the lens).
So you try that nice Mr. Moore, he of Racing fame, and he advises you that said units are rarer than a 12-year-old Teesside virgin.
Someone suggested making a new indicator unit using assorted lamps and bits of mesh - "Wikkid man! It would look like an air vent!". Well yes, but the 390 is liberally dotted with REAL air vents already, ta very much. None of yer Max Twat bling here, thanks all the same.
But he did have a point, so I started thinking about ways to provide a neat, rotproof, long-term solution. This is what I came up with:
(Errr... sorry about the unpainted spoiler repair...ahem...)
Of course there is more to it than a bit of lensed plastic:
I have yet to get the bulbholders, but my plan is to use orange bulbs for the indicators (a la modern cars!) - though I was also contemplating orange LED clusters (a la modern TVRs!!) - and standard sidelamp bulbs. The white diffuser is optional: I'm going to try it with and without before I finalise the construction - of course there needs to be a few screws and probably some silicon sealant in there (well it wouldn't be a TVR otherwise ;-) ) and I need to add a division between the lamps (though the Renault unit doesn't have one as such). The casing will be sprayed internally with chrome paint to give some reflectivity.
So far I haven't spent anything: the bulbholders are about 80p each and will be glassed in to keep the water out.
What thinkest thou? Is this 'in the spirit'?
Ian
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Sunday 6th July 19:45 'cos he's crap with pichers...
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Sunday 6th July 19:47
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Sunday 6th July 19:48
when a stone is thrown and smashes the lens to bits (and one of the bulbs with it
). Oh, apologies for the flies on the bumper, by the way... Anyway, off you trundle to Renault, who promise visual Nirvana in, oh, 5 or 6 weeks, 40 quid a side please guv'nor (the backplate is also rotten, so not much point in just renewing the lens).
So you try that nice Mr. Moore, he of Racing fame, and he advises you that said units are rarer than a 12-year-old Teesside virgin.
Someone suggested making a new indicator unit using assorted lamps and bits of mesh - "Wikkid man! It would look like an air vent!". Well yes, but the 390 is liberally dotted with REAL air vents already, ta very much. None of yer Max Twat bling here, thanks all the same.
But he did have a point, so I started thinking about ways to provide a neat, rotproof, long-term solution. This is what I came up with:
(Errr... sorry about the unpainted spoiler repair...ahem...)
Of course there is more to it than a bit of lensed plastic:
I have yet to get the bulbholders, but my plan is to use orange bulbs for the indicators (a la modern cars!) - though I was also contemplating orange LED clusters (a la modern TVRs!!) - and standard sidelamp bulbs. The white diffuser is optional: I'm going to try it with and without before I finalise the construction - of course there needs to be a few screws and probably some silicon sealant in there (well it wouldn't be a TVR otherwise ;-) ) and I need to add a division between the lamps (though the Renault unit doesn't have one as such). The casing will be sprayed internally with chrome paint to give some reflectivity.
So far I haven't spent anything: the bulbholders are about 80p each and will be glassed in to keep the water out.
What thinkest thou? Is this 'in the spirit'?
Ian
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Sunday 6th July 19:45 'cos he's crap with pichers...
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Sunday 6th July 19:47
>>> Edited by wedg1e on Sunday 6th July 19:48
gemini said:
look good imho
my o/s has started to flash the sidelight instead of the indicator - any ideas?
>> Edited by gemini on Monday 7th July 10:07
All the best Wedges do that Rich, mine does too :-) Fixed it months ago by a clean of the earth connection, started again in last couple of weeks :-( Not looked yet.........
PS Ian, it looks good :-)
kevsmev said:
Certainly look good. Correct me if i'm wrong but I thought lenses had to have approval markings etc for the MOT?
:ahem:
Shhhhh....
Anyway, what about this twattiness that involves putting bits of stick-on acrylic sheet over your light to make them look 'Wikkid' - is that kosher? Seem to be plenty of shitheaps out there so adorned...
>> Edited by wedg1e on Monday 7th July 21:31
dickymint said:
Would the dimply bit of plastic be cut out out of a fluorescent light difuser perchance!
Erm... do you remember 'Call My Bluff'?
A) I commissioned a special one-off moulding from Dimples'R'Us in Unbreakium (a new kind of plastic that is set to take the aircraft world by storm. Apparently Boeing are set to make the 797 from it - and that has 12 engines and a 4000 foot wingspan, so it must be OK)
B) Thousands of tiny snails from the bottom of the sea somewhere are plucked from their mating rituals (during which time their shells turn transparent), teased out by semi-naked teenage maidens wearing only tight red shorts like those that used to be in the Kellogs Special K advert, then the shells are sliced in half and bonded together using simian semen obtained from the monkey research labs at Ann Summers. The resultant wafer of dimples is then polished by lapidarists using the gossamer of the Black Widow, producing a super-clear lens - that unfortunately melts in the first rain.
C) I found a spare bulkhead lamp and a length of white perspex, used the housing as a template on the perspex, fine-tuned the shape to suit the bumper recess and then used that as a template for the dimpled stuff (which DOES actually meet some British Standard or other
). Then I stood on the dimpled stuff and had to start again. Any ideas?
jmorgan said:
Just a though, led's?
Aye, as I said in my first post, I was contemplating the orange LED clusters.. but you need to include an additional load because they don't act like a filament lamp (less current draw) so the flasher unit thinks the bulb has blown and does odd things. Not insurmountable, however. Similarly, you can get high-brightness white LEDs but they tend to be very directional. I was thinking maybe the white diffuser and dimples might spread it better if I try LEDs.
I was also pondering the fact that, as I took a mould directly off the bumper, there's now no room to rubber-mount the lamp units. However, I'd guess that in practise, the Renault ones don't fare much better as they have two big self-tappers through them!
I realised too that the GRP units actually weigh as much as the old steel ones (ignoring the fact that my lenses may be lighter). So I may try again and use less GRP mat in the mix! It's about 4mm thick in places
Early trials with the inside sprayed silver and an orange bulb running from a battery were VERY promising (in the dark). One other thing I intend to do is run separate earth feeds back to the 3-way connector so that you can't get the symptoms reported above of the wrong lamps lighting!
Going back to the LEDs, one of the guys at work came up with the idea that you could 'pot' the LEDs in clear acrylic using the original lens as a mould, so you'd have 'solid' lamps of the actual shape of the Renault items... virtually unbreakable!
I believe that there may be some technicality that rules LEDs out because Construction & Use Regs specify 'a filament lamp' which LEDs manifestly are not. But TVR get away with it...
Ian
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